139th British Open Championship Preview

Golf Betting Lines

07/12/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Golf's most historic championship heads to its most historic venue for the 139th playing of the British Open Championship.

The championship is celebrating its 150th anniversary -- it was not held 11 times due to World Wars I and II -- at the course where it has been played the most times.

The Old Course at St. Andrews, known as the "Home of Golf," will host the Open for the 27th time. The list of winners on the Old Course includes golf legends such as Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Peter Thompson, Tony Lema, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods.

Woods, who has won the last two Opens at St. Andrews, is one of four people who have won twice at the Old Course.

Over the last eight Open Championships on the Old Course, John Daly was the least accomplished winner and that is saying something since it was Daly's fourth win overall and second major championship title.

In the last two Opens at St. Andrews, Woods put on a show. He cruised to a five-stroke win over Colin Montgomerie in 2005 and fired four rounds in the 60s to beat Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn by eight shots in 2000.

In his 2000 victory, Woods did not hit a single bunker and was just the third winner to post all four rounds in the 60s.

In 2005, the British Open said goodbye to three-time champion Jack Nicklaus. Like Woods, Nicklaus earned two of his three Open Championship titles on the Old Course.

Last year, Tom Watson made a serious charge while trying to win a record-tying sixth Open Championship title. The 59-year-old fell just short of becoming the oldest major champion in golf history.

Watson led by a stroke heading to the final hole after making birdie on the 17th at Turnberry. After he knocked his second shot over the 18th green, Watson pitched his third to eight feet. He started walking just after hitting the putt and the ball slid by the hole on the right.

He tapped in for bogey, then headed to a playoff with Stewart Cink. In the four-hole playoff, Cink easily bested Watson for his first major championship victory.

Cink needed just 14 strokes, while Watson struggled with 20 shots. Cink went par-par-birdie-birdie to deny Watson from being the third player to win the Open Championship in three different decades.

The 36-year-old Cink did not own a share of the lead at any point during the tournament until his birdie on the 72nd hole of regulation found the bottom of the cup. Watson, playing three groups behind Cink, would have won the title if not for his bogey at the last.

Watson's incredible run was the second straight year someone over 50 years of age was in contention.

In 2008, 53-year-old Greg Norman held the third-round lead and was still atop the leaderboard standing on the 10th tee in the final round. The Australian stumbled to four bogeys on the back nine en route to a seven-over 77. He slid into a share of third at plus-nine.

Norman's crash enabled Padraig Harrington to win the Open Championship for the second straight year. His first win in 2007 came in a playoff over Sergio Garcia. Harrington defeated the Spaniard by a single stroke (15-16) for the first of his three major championship titles.

Phil Mickelson enters the week at St. Andrews coming off two top-five finishes. Earlier in the season, Mickelson closed with back-to-back 67s to beat Lee Westwood by three strokes at the Masters. The victory was Mickelson's third at Augusta and fourth in a major championship.

Mickelson missed last year's Open to be with his wife, Amy, and his mother, who were both in the early stages of cancer treatment.

He has struggled at the British Open in the past with his best finish coming in 2004. Mickelson missed the playoff that year by a single stroke. His next best finish was at St. Andrews in 2000, when he tied for 11th.

Heading into the 139th Open Championship, two of the favorites are Steve Stricker and Justin Rose.

Stricker is coming off a repeat victory at the John Deere Classic, where several records fell throughout the week. Stricker opened with a 60, but trailed Paul Goydos, who fired a 59 on Thursday.

The 43-year-old Stricker set the 54-hole record with his total of 188 and ended up beating Goydos by two. Goydos did earn the final spot in the field at St. Andrews thanks to his second-place finish.

Rose is coming off two wins in his last three starts. He won the Memorial the first weekend in June for his first PGA Tour title, but still failed to qualify for the U.S. Open.

The Englishman said he considered the AT&T National his U.S. Open and held on for a one-stroke win over a hard-charging Ryan Moore.

Rose and Moore both earned spots in the British Open field thanks to those finishes.

The 29-year-old Rose burst onto the golf scene as a teenager at the 1998 British Open, where he holed out for eagle on the final hole to jump into a share of fourth place. Rose will be competing in his ninth Open championship, and first at St. Andrews.

He will look to avoid the fate of Westwood at the U.S. Open. Westwood entered the U.S. Open having finished second at the Masters and earned his second PGA Tour title the week before Pebble Beach at the St. Jude Classic.

Westwood never got anything going at the U.S. Open and finished tied for 16th at plus-eight. Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell closed with a three-over 74, but it was enough for a one-stroke win at the U.S. Open.

McDowell, a six-time winner on the European Tour, claimed his first major championship title as well as his first win on the PGA Tour at Pebble. He is coming off a tie for 21st at the Scottish Open, which was his first start since the U.S. Open.

Heading into St. Andrews, it would be tough to call Woods one of the favorites because of his underwhelming play so far this season. However, he has dominated this course in the past.

Will this be the week Westwood or Ian Poulter breaks through for his first major? Can Els win his fourth major championship title? Or will Miguel Angel Jimenez turn his solid play into his third victory of the season and first major title?

There are plenty of questions entering the Open Championship. It remains to be seen who has the right answers on the Old Course at St. Andrews.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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